Living
‘Screw This City’: There’s Never Been a Worse Time to Rent an Apartment in NYC
Bidding wars and record prices are leaving renters frustrated and without many options.
New York’s apartment market has become super competitive as rents set records and vacancies stay low.
Photographer: Ismail Ferdous/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
It’s the peak rental season in New York — and in the hottest market in decades, apartment hunters are fed up, frustrated and over budget.
Open houses have been drawing hundreds of people and then going viral on TikTok. Some prospective tenants are applying sight unseen for multiple units that seem good enough, hoping that one landlord chooses them. Apartments are often renting for hundreds of dollars over their asking prices, which already were well above what they’d ever leased at before.